Huge scandal during election of IOC president: Suspicious voting process, woman elected for first time

Photo: Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP / Profimedia

Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe has become the first woman and the first African to head the International Olympic Committee (IOC), taking over from Thomas Bach.

Recommended

However, a big scandal marked this vote.

As can be seen in the video, at that time IOC president, Bach, only addressed the audience and read her name from a slip.

Therefore, no one found out how many votes any of the candidates had received, among whom was the legendary Sebastian Coe, a huge favorite, and those present complained that they had to wait almost two hours for the online voting system to produce results.

It was obvious that the voting system had completely failed, since none of the delegates present had insight into the course of it, nor into the results of the voting.

Many that those at the scene were stunned when the current president of the IOC, Thomas Bach, came out and announced the winner after the first round of voting.

"It's impossible that Coventry received more than half of the votes already after the first round," one members of the IOC who was present at the voting shook their head.

Coventry reportedly received 49 out of 97 votes, which is exactly the number she needed to win the first round - the outcome nobody expected.

There were also many comments that this was a "set-up by Thomas Bach" and as proof of that, the non-transparent and suspicious voting process was cited, as well as Bach's sudden announcement about the new IOC president, which caught literally everyone in the hall by surprise.

The voting was conducted by Lumi Global, whose director is Nigel Knowles, and whose managing director is Richard Taylor.

As a side note - Nigel Knowles is known for the big scandal back in 2021, when he had to leave the company Brewster Partners, due to accusations of fraud, which the Times and the BBC reported about.

Thomas Bach, who led the IOC for the past 12 years, stepped down, leaving behind a legacy that included numerous reforms, but also the challenges related to maintain the Olympic spirit in an era of increasingly complex global relations.

Among the seven candidates, each had their own specific goals and priorities. Sebastian Coe, the former Olympic athlete and current president of World Athletics, was one of the most prominent. His long-term work on the promotion of athletics, as well as his commitment to the improvement of women's sports, made him popular in the Olympic sports circles.

Among the competitors were other candidates such as Kirsty Coventry, a multiple Olympic swimming champion, as well as Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., who already held high positions in the IOC, and David Lappartient, the head of international cycling.

The first part of the process was devoted to the presentation of the candidates. Each candidate had 20 minutes to present their program and vision for the future of the Olympic movement. After that, there was a vote which happened, as expected, under a lot of pressure.

Although it was clear that the decision would be made among a group of top contenders, what followed after the voting was a surprise to many.

(Telegraf.rs)